


vacationing on mars

by Azzandra



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Ambiguous Sole Survivor, F/M, Pre-War, Time Travel, sort of (see previous tag re: time travel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:07:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5486453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An errant Institute scientist escapes into the past, and the pre-War Commonwealth specifically. The Sole Survivor and X6 pursue. And X6 does  not have a high opinion of the Commonwealth in <i>any</i> time period.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vacationing on mars

 

 

"A time machine," the Director repeated slowly. "Dr. Langley escaped the Institute through a time machine."

"'Time machine' is not the technical term we'd use--" one of the scientists began.

The Director threw her hands up, gesturing at the contraption behind her.

"Is this, or is this not a machine?"

"Well, yes--"

"And did he, or did he not, just use it to travel to another time period than the one we are currently in?"

"Well, yes, but space and time being inherently the same, the machine created a fold which--"

"Doctor," the Director interrupted, "when did he travel to?"

"Oh!" The scientist flipped through some papers on their clipboard. "The year 2064."

 

***

 

Really, there was no one more qualified than the Director herself to go after the wayward scientist. Apart from her stunning competence and adaptability when faced with unexpected situations, she was the one person in the entire Institute--the entire Commonwealth--who knew what to expect and how to navigate the old world.

And though the old world was a far less dangerous one, and the Director assured everyone that she would not be in much danger at all, there was no way in hell X6 was going to let her go alone.

"Alright, fine," the Director acquiesced, then looked him up and down. "But you're getting proper clothes. All this leather is going to be distracting."

 

***

 

What surprised X6 the most, perhaps, was not that the Commonwealth was a very different place pre-War, but that in many ways it was the same.

The buildings were intact, yes, but they were not the neatly arranged in anything like the symmetrical stylings of the Institute. There was no trash or rubble stacked high on the streets of Boston, but there was a persistent film of grime and dust stirred up by the unfathomably large number of people which trod the streets. And that was not even the thing which galled him the most.

X6 did not credit himself with much imagination, but that the people in this time period allowed dominion of the streets to the bright, gaudy, cumbersome vehicles which whizzed freely by, and that they were content to cluster the narrow strips on the edges of the streets as if mere machines had higher priority than they did, spoke to a type of insanity X6 had not known could be possible.

He thought this as a car screeched to a halt mere inches from hitting him, and Phil clamped down on his arm to pull him away from the road.

The driver, turning red in the face, slammed the door open and stepped out half-way. Another car had to screech to a halt behind his.

He was about ready to scream something, no doubt laden with obscenities, when the Director turned and beat him to the punch.

"Hey pal, where'd you learn to drive, bird school?!" she yelled. "Flappit outta here, buddy!"

The man froze in place, brows knitting together as he was visibly trying to parse her words. X6 had never seen a human stuck in a feedback loop, but if he ever did, he expected their expression would be much the same.

Phil hauled him X6 off, and rounded a corner with him before the driver could snap back to his senses.

"Don't do that again!" she hissed.

"I apologize," X6 replied. "You said they would stop at the strips on the road."

"When the walkway light is green. When it's _green_ ," she repeated, and pointed to a semaphore on top of a chunky metal pillar. The red display of a red hand turned to the image of a green human figure in motion.

That was hardly any better, X6 thought, as his lip curled in distaste. Everything was bright patchworks of colored lights in this place, or else he might have noticed the devices the first time around. As it was, the flickering Nuka-Cola ad in the background was apparently designed to be purposefully distracting.

Having learned her lesson about letting him out of her sight, the Director proceeded to hook her arm tightly with X6's. He let her lead him along, and followed without a protest.

"Ma'am, if I may ask, where are we going?"

The Director's eyes flicked to her surroundings, assessing.

"Well, personally, I'm feeling a bit peckish."

"Ma'am."

"I'm not joking, X6. I'm hungry. We're going to eat. We can plan our next step over greasy fries. Ooh, and a burger too. One I can plausibly pretend is made out of regular un-mutated cow." She looked at him very seriously for a moment. "Two hundred and ten years is a hell of a long time to wait before indulging a craving."

 

***

 

There was something about the diner that looked the way the songs on Diamond City Radio sounded. Hazy golden sunlight poured in through large windows. The decor was mainly pastels accented with reds, menus and Nuka-Cola ads in pastels and curly cursive fonts.

The Director ordered them both the fries and burgers she was craving, and studied the mission folder on the table as she sipped a cup of fresh coffee.

In her denim dress, with her hair coiffed and accessorized with a ribbon, she seemed at first glance to fit in with this world. And nobody gave her much of a second glance.

He, on the other hand, felt awkward. Too stiff, too stern, in a world where people were meeker. He did not wear the Courser uniform, but could not shed the Courser aura any more than he could his own skin. Even in slacks and a shirt, people stepped out of his way, giving him a berth like they could sense what he truly was. Perhaps, somewhere in their lizard brain, they really could.

The Director looked up from the folder and raised an eyebrow.

"If you frown like that, you'll give our waitress a scare. And then how will I get my food?" she said, a smile tugging at her lips.

"We should find Dr. Langley as soon as possible," X6 replied.

"I have an idea for where to look," she said, closing the folder and pushing it aside. "But I think we'll only be able to start tomorrow."

"Good to know, Ma'am," X6 replied.

"And if anyone asks, your name is Ernie."

X6 gave the Director his most disapproving face, which overall, wasn't that far removed from his regular expression. 

She duly ignored it and asked if he wanted any coffee.

 

***

 

They rented a room at a motel, inexpensive but clean and quiet, especially after one had become inured to the Commonwealth after the Great War. 

X6 took one bed and she took the other, and they spent the rest of the evening watching television while she made delighted sounds and explained everything she could recall about the programs or the ads in between.

X6 listened quietly, uninterested in the programs themselves but content with the sound of her voice.

At one point, she left the room and returned with arms full of sweets--from the vending machine down the hall, she explained, as she dumped half a dozen Fancy Lads Snack Cakes in X6's lap.

Then she settled back in and continued her running commentary.

X6 ate his snack cakes and listened.

 

***

 

It was two days in that X6 began to see it: the thready pull of nostalgia and sadness at the edges of the Director's eyes, where her thin crow's feet were starting to become more pronounced.

"I remember this place," she said, referring to the park they were cutting through in order to reach their destination.

Her steps slowed then, and she looked around, apprehensive.

"Nate and I used to love this park," she said. "We met up here all the time, even before we started dating. I wonder..."

She frowned in thought for a few moments, but then shook her head dismissively.

"No, no, never mind."

She took X6's arm again. She had that habit, since the day they arrived to this time period, and though ostensibly it was to keep X6 out of trouble, when she grasped him this time, it was a bit tighter than necessary.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said softly to her.

A bitter laugh bubbled up in her.

"It's alright, X6. It's fine."

It wasn't, but X6 did not argue. She was entitled to her grief.

 

***

 

The trail took them from government building to corporate research facility. There was, overall, a great deal less combat than X6 would have wished.

Instead he had to stand stoically behind the Director as she charmed, wheedled and fibbed her way to the information she sought.

The errant Institute scientist, Dr. Langley, had set up interviews with a few notable research labs. The trail of awed corporate lackeys he'd left behind was getting warmer.

It was by the Director flirting with a receptionist at the Nuka-Cola machine while X6 checked the receptionist's terminal that they managed to find, in advance, the date at which Dr. Langley had been penciled in for an interview.

Finally, they were closing in. They would know when and where to find the elusive doctor, and had enough time to plan an extraction.

The Director was still flush with victory as they made their way back to the motel, and passed through the park.

"I am so glad I didn't make you flirt with her," she said. "Not that women don't go for, y'know... all this," she gestured at X6, "but boy, would that have been barking up the wrong tree."

And she pulled her sleeve up to reveal a sequence of numbers had been penned on the skin of her forearm.

X6 couldn't make sense of it.

"A code, Ma'am?" he asked.

"Oh wow," she said, "really good call on not letting you flirt with her. It's a telephone number, X6. People exchange them so they can get in touch."

X6 grunted in acquiescence. He was aware of telephones, mostly as part of the miscellaneous junk which littered the Commonwealth. He had never given any thought to how they were once used.

"Maybe if we're delayed here too long, I'll even give her a call," the Director laughed.

Before X6 could comment on the inadvisability of that action, she choked on her laughter.

He understood why a moment later, as he followed her gaze.

Walking towards them, eyes glued to a book in her hands, was the very image of the Director, but a decade and a half younger. She lacked the Director's scars, or wrinkles, and she lacked the Director's steel--her shoulders were slumped down like she meant to barrel through the world without allowing it time to take notice of her--but when she bumped past X6 and apologized hastily, it was also the Director's voice X6 heard; the same husky tones.

As she passed by them, heading in the opposite direction, the Director pivoted on her heel to continue watching her.

But the moment she turned around, the Director flinched at whatever she saw.

"Oh god," she said, and moved so X6 was between her and her younger self. "It's Nate," she whispered.

X6 tilted his head, catching glimpse of the Director's younger self in the peripheral vision, and the man she was just tackling in an embrace. He was equally young, fresh-faced and wearing clothes a bit too baggy. After he was released from the embrace, he took the young Director's book and put an arm around her shoulders, leading her away.

"Oh god," the Director whispered again.

She rubbed a hand over her face and then leaned her forehead against X6's collarbone, closing her eyes.

She inhaled deeply, the sight of her long dead husband shaking her even worse than that of her own self. A woman who could stare down raiders and hordes of ghouls, who would coolly shoot down mutant suiciders without so much as a flinch or a step back, and this is what shook her to her core.

She glanced over X6's shoulder again, something in her wavering.

X6 wasn't sure what was going through her mind, whether she meant to do something or if she was merely in the grips of some strong emotion, but gently, he touched her back--with hesitant fingertips first, before he flattened his palm more firmly.

"Ma'am, you shouldn't look," he said softly.

She took a shuddery breath at that, and leaned against him more heavily--slumped, really--and for some reason it seemed natural at that point for X6 to put his arms around her and hold her.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," he whispered into her hair.

Her fists tightened around the fabric of his jacket, and she only nodded.

 

***

 

They were supposed to start making plans for Dr. Langley, but that seemed like the furthest thing from the Director's mind as they returned to the motel.

She did not say a word for the rest of the day, receding into a strange, sour nostalgia that did not seem to be doing her much good.

X6 would have liked to distract her from it, but he wasn't sure how. He wasn't sure it would be welcome if he tried.

He had been fostering a sort of fear... or not a fear, exactly, but a niggling thought, that she might wish to stay here. That she would see her old world again and not wish to leave. That the fresh coffee and the dusty, intact streets, and the people she was used to would call to her.

But now he realized that the one thing that could have kept her here was her husband, and he belonged to her younger self already. She'd seen it.

As night fell, the Director did not move from her seat by the window, staring out. Sunlight gave way to twilight dimness, then to the artificial neon pink and electric blue flickering from the sign outside.

"Ma'am," he said, interrupting the profound silence for the first time.

She stirred, and turned to look at him, her expression unreadable.

"Ma'am, we need to talk about Dr. Langley."

She was silent for a long time, staring at him, before comprehension settled over her.

"In the morning, X6," she replied.

"As you say, Ma'am," X6 replied. "But only if you sleep."

"I'm not sure I should," she said, strangely.

X6 was quiet for a long time as well, not sure how to interpret her answer. He walked over and took the chair across from hers.

"Then I'll sit with you, Ma'am," he said.

She nodded.

 

***

 

It was an hour and six minutes later that the Director broke the silence.

"It seems so strange, seeing the world again, knowing what I know now," she admitted.

"You wish you could warn them?" X6 asked.

She frowned in thought before answering.

"No. You probably mean about the bombs, but no, I was thinking about the bad things already happening. I didn't see it clearly the first time--or maybe I did but I was so used to it I didn't think it was strange--but _the terror_." She shook her head in disbelief. "All this fear we used to live with daily. Fear of the future. Fear of the commies. Fear of the Blue Flu. Fear of the inevitable collapse. I didn't realize just how much fear we were constantly trying to choke down every minute of the day. It's--It's such an unbearable way to live. I don't know how we did it."

"So you don't want to stay here," X6 surmised.

"Staying here was never on the table for me, X6. There was never any... future in it, you could say."

He was gratified to hear that. He tried not to show it, but something in the Director's eyes told him she knew.

"You must have felt fear over something at some point as well," she said in a hushed voice.

"I was not programmed for fear, Ma'am."

She looked at him, and reached out to take his hand.

"I think we both know that Institute programming has no bearing on whether a synth feels a given thing or not," she said plainly. "But you walk into the SRB every day, and right up to people who would scrape the inside of your head clean if they knew about everything you had in there."

X6 felt his jaw tighten. Vulnerability was not something he knew how to handle, but it was probably also something the Director was not happy to have revealed either. She rather pointedly did not talk about Nate.

And he was not sure what to do with the conflicting impulse to tell her that he knew she didn't allow that kind of thing to happen anymore, when he knew very well that if the Institute's well-being was at stake, it would be her job to make the call. He rarely had any idea what decision she'd make before things were already in motion, and it added a dizzying element of surprise to being around her that he'd come to enjoy.

No, this wasn't something he could untangle yet.

He turned his hand in her grip, so his palm was against hers.

"I was afraid you wouldn't want to come back to the Institute," he admitted.

She stared at him for a beat.

"Don't worry, X6. This is a nice place for a vacation, but I wouldn't want to live here," she replied. "Not for very long, anyway."

She rose from her seat, her hand trailing up his arm and coming to cup the side of his face.

"Are you tired, X6?" she asked.

"No, Ma'am," he said, looking up at her. He was not. He was far more resilient than a regular human, and he had done no fighting at all in the entire time they'd been there. He could go for days without sleep and suffer no detrimental effect.

Her thumb brushed over his cheekbone gently, just under the rim of his sunglasses.

"You should sleep anyway," the Director said.

He raised his hand and curled fingers around her wrist. She was warm, and he could feel the flutter of her pulse.

"You need the sleep more than I do, Ma'am," he said.

"Maybe," she replied, but went to prepare for bed anyway.

He spent the rest of the night in the chair, watching as she slept fitfully. He wondered if there was something wrong with him, that he could still feel the warmth of her palm against his cheek.

 

***

 

A tiny adjustment of the arm, and the way her warm hand held onto his arm seemed more like the way men escorted women as they walked down the street, and less like she did not trust him not to get into a tousle with a passing automobile the moment she let go of him.

If there was also significance in the gesture, he was sure she would ignore it in favor of appreciating that this maintained their cover much better.

In his peripheral vision, she smiled.

 

***

 

With plans for Dr. Langley set in place, all that was left was the waiting.

X6 was adept at waiting. He had the patience that only a Courser could hone, the single-minded intent of a hunter. He could wait for a very long time, and really they only had a few days of waiting to get through.

What X6 was less used to was filling time with distractions, and the Commonwealth was replete with distractions at this point in time.

The Director traced a finger down the timetable in the newspaper, intent on the page.

"You've never seen a movie, have you, X6?" she asked.

"No, Ma'am."

"Would you like to go?"

"Whatever you want, Ma'am."

She studied him for a long moment before nodding to herself.

"Something with explosions, I think," she said, more to herself.

 

***

 

"What about dancing?"

"Ma'am?"

"You ever dance?"

"My programming doesn't cover that, Ma'am."

"It's just moving to a beat, X6. You don't even have to be good at it."

"Nonetheless, Ma'am."

 

***

 

"Ice cream."

"Ma'am?"

"You can't find ice cream in the Commonwealth anymore. And the Institute doesn't have it either. I asked."

"Ma'am, if this is your way of saying you want to take me to an ice cream shop--"

"I'm saying I'm going to an ice cream shop, X6. But since you'll be accompanying me anyway, what kind of flavor do you think you'd like?"

 

***

 

She did take him to a movie. It was loud and frantic and X6 didn't think he'd enjoy it, but somewhere along the line he'd let himself get drawn into the story.

When the protagonist leaped across the gap between two buildings and it seemed he wouldn't make it, X6 flinched. He tensed and stiffened in his seat, holding his breath as the character on-screen scrambled to lift himself onto the roof.

The Director's fingers were cool against his skin as she patted his hand, and she leaned over to whisper in his ear,

"Enjoying yourself?"

He could feel the smile on her lips, the delicate thread of her breath against his throat--so close that if he turned his head he could close the space between them.

He felt this knowledge like a warm tingle down his spine, and a different kind of tension in his body.

Somewhere in the momentary distraction he suffered, the hero had managed to climb to safety, and the Director had removed her hand again.

X6 decided he liked the movies.

 

***

 

She bought him ice cream, a scoop of chocolate because she claimed everybody loved chocolate.

The shop owner watched with curiosity from behind the counter as X6 deliberately took a spoon and dug into his first scoop of ice cream. Then the shop owner gasped as X6 took an entire spoonful into his mouth and began chewing.

The Director's look of dawning horror came a moment before the agonizing pain in his forehead. It felt like biological alarms blaring internally at him as his body underwent some sort of critical failure.

That was how X6 experienced his first brain-freeze.

The pain ebbed away and his senses returned, and the Director's hands were cupping his face as she stared at him with concern.

"That's not how you're supposed to eat ice cream!" she chided.

X6 decided he did not like ice cream anyway.

 

***

 

She did not take him dancing out in public, but when they got back to the motel room, she turned on the radio, and in the space between the beds, she tried to teach him how to move.

It did not come naturally to him, and his stiffness was only partially caused by inexperience.

X6 thought he felt... self-conscious. 

It was a new feeling and he did not enjoy it.

He did enjoy watching the Director move, and twist in certain ways--something in the hips, a certain motion he particularly enjoyed--

When she grew exasperated with him and his unwillingness to follow her tutelage, she twisted right out of his arms and flopped down onto the bed, exhausted.

X6 knew he should not have been thinking, in that moment, of how easily he could stride over and settle down over her. That he should most certainly not be thinking of grasping her hips the way she tried to teach him for dancing while she was supine on the bed, that he shouldn't be distracted by the way her chest heaved as she panted from exhaustion.

He took one single step close and she propped herself up on her elbows to look at him, and he knew. He knew he shouldn't be thinking about these things.

He knew why he was doing it anyway.

X6 decided he enjoyed dancing, but only when _she_ did it.

 

***

 

"X6... you ever done this before?" she asked him in the breath between kisses.

But she wasn't asking about kissing, exactly, and X6 smothered any further questions as he caught her mouth with his.

He couldn't explain about abandoned corridors and being pinned against a wall by another Courser, and a quiet, quick rut that would never be spoken of again. He couldn't tell her that a body is a body and the impulses could be the same no matter how it was put together, and he didn't think she ought to know about the things he did with the others anyway, because this wasn't a secret of his alone.

But this? This specifically, with the Director's leg hooked over his hip, with the skirt of her dress hiked up, with every soft or lean part of her body under his hands, with her mouth salty-sweet and hot against his--this thing in particular? No, this was new for both of them.

"Ma'am, that's enough questions," he said.

 

***

 

It was not real. They were far and away, too many points removed from the familiar.

This Commonwealth was a painted set piece, a variation on the post-War world, if the grime were removed. It had scared people with forced smiles, and nobody shooting, and nobody running--it had victims who set their own necks on the chopping block.

Everything tasted sweet and salty and cloying, and everything was painted bright like it could ward off death, and everyone waited, tense and ready, for something they knew was coming.

"It's like a different planet," the Director had said, thoughtfully, on the first day.

And because it was a different planet, because it was a strange place where strange things happened, this was allowed here, and now. It was already in the past, already immutable.

It was allowed here for X6 to touch her, and drag out the sounds of pleasure from her. He mouthed at the junction of her neck and shoulder, and his fingers gripped into the flesh of her thigh, and she moaned for him, just for him, and for the things he was doing.

Her hands were not soft--not soft like they'd been most of her life before the War, but calloused and strong--and they left lightning in their wake as her touch trailed down his body, tracing his shoulder blades and skimming over his ribs, and going on lower.

When she gripped him, he moaned and was startled at the sound of his own pleasure, as if unsure that it would even be possible. He thought it would always be lightning and strange heat, but this was something that now thrummed inside him. 

In the hair's breadth of space between their lips, where their breaths mingled, a low ' _please'_ was hummed.

 

***

 

Afterwards, there was quiet. There was the Director's steady breathing, and her eyes narrowed as she lay on her side, watching him.

X6 looked at the ceiling, curiously cataloguing the way his body felt both exhausted and relaxed. He was not sure what she was looking for in him, and so he could not offer it to her.

Her fingers came up and touched his cheek.

"You look good without the sunglasses," she said, and X6 had the thought that maybe she hadn't been looking _for_ something, but merely looking.

He took her fingers and kissed them--a gesture he'd seen somewhere, that had lodged into some cranny of his memory and floated to the surface now. He kissed her fingers.

"You look good all the time," he replied with embarrassing honesty.

He smothered down the embarrassment, though. It was unbecoming of a Courser, even one in an unorthodox situation.

She quirked a smile at him.

"This was nice," she said in a hushed voice. "We should do it again sometime."

"If you ever need another vacation, Ma'am," X6 said, "I'll be sure to remind you how much you liked this place."

She made a sound of acknowledgment, and her eyes fluttered closed.

A vacation, that was all this was, X6 thought. Everything would go back to normal once they returned home.

**Author's Note:**

> This marks the third fandom in a row I've written time travel fic for, and I don't even like time travel fic *that* much. Oh, but at least I actually completed this one, so that's something!


End file.
